April was the forty-eighth month since we opened the War Department archives to community transcription. We are still receiving regular requests for transcription accounts. Here is a snapshot of transcription activity for the month:

As of April 30, we had 2,220 users, with 65 new transcribers registered since the last update. Those volunteer transcribers have made 14,728 saves to War Department documents, which is about 384 additional edits since the last update. The average number of edits before a document is saved continues to be three. We have had 244,565 total page views.

Among those who signed up to transcribe in the last month included university students, members of the Choctaw Nation, the Gun Lake Tribe, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, a retired member of the United States Marine Corps, and librarians and archivists. We had a large influx of genealogists sign up this month thanks to a post on the Legal Genealogist blog about the Papers of the War Department. Those who specified an interest or focus mentioned the history of North Carolina, Georgia, and Maine; payroll records and pension paperwork; the 1791 Battle of the Wabash; the relationship between Native Americans and the United States government and military; the infrastructure of the War Department; and the constitutionality of the Militia Act.